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Saturday, October 17, 2015

Seattle Schools Updates

From Sped PTSA:

Please
be assured that the October Seattle Special Education PTSA meeting IS
STILL BEING HELD on October 20th 7pm - 9pm at West Seattle High School
(in the library). Confirmed speakers are: Israel Vela Executive Director of Schools Southwest Region Seattle Public Schools And Mike Starosky, Chief of Schools.

*Please Note - There is some confusion as our meeting was to originally
be held directly after the Seattle School Districts SpEd Regional
meeting. The SPS SpEd Department cancelled their meeting. They have rescheduled their Regional Meeting to Nov. 10th.

The Seattle SpEd PTSA has decided to keep our meeting as it was originally scheduled on Oct. 20th. Please help spread the word, and pass this information on! Thank you.

We hope to see you there!

Rainier Beach High School

RBHS is holding a transportation summit on Thursday, October 22nd around the number of kids at the school who have to walk there thru unsafe territory. It's at RBHS at 6 p.m. Guests include Councilmembers Tom Rasmussen and Bruce Harrell. Transit Riders Union petition in support.

Currently, only students who live more than two miles (as the crow
flies) from their school are eligible for a free ORCA pass subsidized by
the school district. Not only is four or more miles a long way to walk
to and from school, often there is no safe route to walk, due to dangerous traffic or neighborhoods.

So the rule is 2 miles+ to get an ORCA card. But here you have a school that is building its enrollment AND has a more variable landscape for the kids to walk - you'd think some of the administration spending would go to help these students. I mean if you truly wanted to keep kids in high school, you make sure you have a safe way for them to get there.

From SPS Communications, news that two SPS art teachers have been honored. Eckstein's Jennifer Heller has been named Middle School Art Educator of the Year by the Washington Art Education Association. As well, Montlake’s Jennifer Lundgren is WAEA’s Elementary Art Educator of the Year. Heller and Lundgren are among five award recipients statewide who will be honored at the WAEA Fall Conference in Leavenworth on Oct. 24.

Both teachers share the conviction that art class should serve as a
refuge and an outlet – especially for stressed or struggling students.

“The kids who maybe don’t really shine in their classroom come in here
and they can just – we like to say – let their freak flag fly a little,”
says Lundgren. “They find their voice in here. It’s really great and
powerful to see.”

I love that "let your freak flag fly" - I think that IS what art is about. Russell Wilson visited Dunlap Elementary and helped out in the garden. (Be sure to turn down the volume if you watch this video - the screams are very loud.)

27 comments:

Oh, that's the newest administrative position. This person is to oversee the Executive Directors' work. Now you'd think that would be the Superintendent's job or maybe the Deputy Superintendent but what's one more layer of bureaucracy between the Superintendent and the front-lines of our schools? The guy they got is very qualified but it's stunning we need the role at all.

Kari Hanson was presented as the director student services, or school services, for special education. I believe she is part of that department's "leadership team". I don't know that she has any particular qualification for helping schools understand their responsibilities and good practice. But, she gets paid a lot. She keeps herself busy doing something.

In looking over the stats on the above page - it looks to me like there is a problem with excess administrators across the state - not just in Seattle. Auburn, for example, has the same number of Deputy assistant superintendents as Seattle. But they have ~1/5 the number of students. They get paid a little less than Seattle's Deputy Sups. but not by that much. Grabbing the lollipop of education out of the hands of Washington state students appear to be endemic to the state, not just our district.

TWO mile walks? As crow flies? Could be three....EACH WAY! Two hours walking to and from school each day is ridiculous. And this in one of the poorest parts of the city, where families might not bus fare on rainy days....Give every student past a mile an Orca card.

If you think school districts are bad, don't look at city hall, Port of Seattle, or Sound Transit. So many people running things, they literally are creating traffic jams. We have plenty of money to spend in this state. The choice is how we choose to spend it. People are going to vote and lobby hard to keep their high paying desk jobs. If that means higher taxes, so be it. As long as their jobs and future opportunities aren't threatened. Big corporations have this problem too. It starts with the need to cover your track by hiring less capable people (and one or two capable martyrs) for cushion. They in turn do the same. That's why as user of this system, there are always tons of contact names, but very little answer or result that helps your child.

I signed it. What's the problem? There were so many sped bureaucrats, that html doesn't permit much other commentary. The length of the list, speaks for itself. There are actually more sped staff, but these are the ones most likely to be plain overhead.

If you're wondering why there's no IAs in your school, or why there's so few special educators, or why there's no special ed sub ever in your building, or for your kid's class - try calling one of the bureaucrats on that list. Don't worry, they won't answer, they're too busy recruiting for their own organization.

Let's not forget. All this largess in special education administration spending is AFTER we've spent hundreds of thousands on "consultants". The last SENECA contract was slipped by the board for $500,000 on Oct 7th I believe. So, not only are we paying outsiders who know nothing about special education - for administration, ideas, compliance, etc - we're also paying for the same thing internally.

And, for the cherry on top - we've had an explosion in out-of-district placements for students with disabilities. No surprise in that. When classrooms are cut, and all money is spent in the central office and on consultants - the students still have to go somewhere. And that would be to the most expensive places of all.

Thanks Reader. It probably got lost with all of the strike info, but during the strike I was trying to draw attention to all of the SPED people we have hired downtown. They are decreasing staff in the classroom and increasing SPED bodies at John Stanford. That is crazy! I just want to keep saying over and over again.. money should be going to hire people working directly with kids, teachers/IAs/counselors, etc. Is that so hard for downtown to understand? Baffled

Your list, although interesting has some inaccuracies and does not by itself present a clear picture of anything. There is a teacher, for example in the over 100,000 list who would undoubtedly like to make that much, but well, you see.... In the "teachers working in the central office" category, some of them may be funded out of central, but actually work daily with students and may never set foot ""downtown." I personally would find the actual job descriptions more enlightening then this list and its conclusions. It's not so simple.

Been there. Kitsap Sun reports salaries. You can look it up. Perhaps it is inaccurate or people have shifted slightly. Jobs change daily. We have no idea why some teachers make what they do, or report in an organization, where they do, or what they even do. Right on. Central may indeed be funding some programs directly benefiting students. They fund school psychs, occupational therapists, braillists.... All of whom directly benefit students. Wouldn't it be awesome if the district published the information itself? I agree!

And to make matters even worse, staff cuts in schools mean that staff with the lowest seniority will be displaced first, eg. They're going to displace the absolute cheapest employees first. Let's displace a maximum number of the lowest paid employees to save the bacon of the highest paid. Does that sound like a good use of tax resources to you?

But, since the district has decided to take a hacksaw to special ed classroom staff, overwhelmingly cutting the lowest paid staff, mostly IAs with the least seniority making $25K year, we should consider the full range of employees working in special education, to make sure that we hack off the parts least likely to provide "a return on investment". By all means, the central staff should decide how to cut itself, along with the classrooms, and should justify every single cut or hire. I'm simply pointing to an untapped source of cuts, which appears to be a good place to look if we wish to minimize disruptions for our most vulnerable students. I'm in no way recommending specific cuts - only a source of excess that so far has been completely untouchable. Is there a problem with that reasoning?

Some of the list doesn't strike me as cut worthy - I know one person is in charge of all preschool placements in the north - definitely a needed position, one oversees all school PTs, another OTs, another Speech. Again things that need to be coordinated. At least one person listed as a central teacher is actually out in schools serving preschoolers on IEPs. These are not necessary things.

That said, Reader's list shows the NEED for real transparency. Not just lists of staff which can be mis-interpreted - you do need some central staff, but for the district to actually have an org chart that they share with the public. Where people and responsibilities are identified and parents know who they need to contact AND can actually get a response back.

Back in the old days, before we had 3 sped directors, we only had 1/3 of a manager - Colleen Stump (she also did ELL and AL). When it came time to find and cut several million dollars out of special education, she cut it ALL of it from the ranks of Supervisors and Consulting Teachers and spared students and teachers completely. That type of charity would never happen now! It's all about administrator preservation nowadays.(Program Specialist is the new name for Consulting Teacher.) Back then, we had only a handful of expensive, private out-of-district placements. Fast-forward 8 years. Sped central staff has 3 directors instead of 1/3 manager (which is equivalent to a principal). That's about a 9X increase in highest management, and even greater increase in cost because "executive director" is a much more expensive title than manager. We have about 3 or 4 times the supervisors and consulting-teacher/program-specialists. There was no "Seneca" or anything like that, though she did hire the "Urban Collaborative" for a $100,000 report. And now, they never think twice about cutting student services or teachers. Now we have a handful of contracts for out-of-district placements as opposed to handful of individual students. We've also got 1,500 more students. Since we've increased management costs by 3 or 4 times... are services really a lot better? I think we all know the answer to that one.

The board will be considering new assignment procedures at their meeting next Wednesday. There's been some attention to the loss of the distance tiebreaker but I haven't seen any discussion of these changes:

So now Advanced Learning will be responsible for making (and publishing) assignment rules for highly capable students. I think I can predict how Garfield's overcrowding problem will be solved next year. Also - Cascadia's enrollment won't be too large for its building if AL decides to serve first and second graders in their general education classrooms.

Good news! The Seattle Special Education PTSA has regained its domain name. Apparently the pressure was too great on Michael's and Sam's 2-man IEP Advocacy Group to continue redirecting our old domain name to their site. Just wanted to share the good news. Find us at:

What's the "inaccuracy"? I actually didn't report anything that was inaccurate. There's simply people who support and value the contributions of various centrally hired staff, and others who believe that central staff should be under the same budgetary scrutiny as staff assigned to schools providing direct service. That's not an inaccuracy.

Just sayin, Been There - do you support the staffing reductions of the 30 special ed teachers and IAs out in all the buildings that mirmac has published? North Seattle are those staff "cutworthy"? If they are your kids' special ed teacher, you'd probably say no way. And Just sayin, once again the brunt of this budgetary cutback is in special ed.... More than any other students, students with disabilities are asked to simply eat it.. to fund the central office spending bonanza. You might value some of the necessary work that the people in the list do, but there's no debating it's breathtaking length!

Reader47, Keri Hansen does not meet the minimum qualifications for the job. I'm sorry but John Hay Elementary is not a diverse community, and she knows absolutely nothing about special ed. And neither do the supervisors. So there you have it. All applicants welcome! No bar too low - for SPS special ed!

Reader

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Education:Master's degree in Special Education or a closely-related field

Experience:Three (3) years of classroom teaching experience and two(2) years of administrative or supervisory experience, preferably in an urban school system with a culturally and racially diverse student population; experience with grant writing and F.R.P. processes desirable.

...

Required Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

Knowledge of:Theories, techniques and methodologies for use in special education. and school psychology; multicultural assessment and education in an urban setting; state and federal legislation, rules, regulations, and court decisions governing special education and school organization service delivery; computerized management systems; organizational analysis; accounting systems in education; rules and requirements for categorical program compliance; collaborative problem-solving methods; budget development; practices and principles of supervision; current trends in educational reform and restructuring; collaboration and team building techniques.

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration